The present invention relates to thermoformed thermoplastic truck bedliners.
The pickup truck is an extremely popular vehicle, not only for commercial and trade applications, but also as a personal vehicle. The truck bed is commonly formed of painted steel, the exposed surfaces of which are prone to scratching, denting and corrosion when brought into contact with tools, cargo, lumber, dunnage, and the wide assortment of items which a driver may choose to carry in the bed. Thermoplastic bedliners have found wide acceptance as an economical and attractive way to shield the metal surfaces of the truck bed from potentially damaging contact. Of course, the modern molded thermoplastic bedliner will often do more than just protect the surface of the bed, but will offer cavities and projections which assist in load restraint, cargo carrying and bed division.
Commonly formed by single sheet thermoforming processes, thermoplastic bedliners present a high value per unit weight, especially when their great length and width are taken into consideration. On the other hand, the volume encompassed by a bedliner is large compared to its weight, which makes single unit shipments prohibitively expensive under most circumstances. As a result, after manufacture, bedliners are stored, warehoused, shipped, and maintained at the retailer in stacks, with a significant quantity of like bedliners nested one within another. By receiving one upwardly opening bedliner within another, the vertical height of the stacked bedliners can be minimized.
Nevertheless, the conventional bedliner has a bottom wall with two parallel side walls which are open at the rear of the truck bed, and which are connected at the front: of the bed by a front wall which runs perpendicular to the side walls. When multiple bedliners of this construction are nested, there can be a progressive tendency toward distortion of the plastic as the stack grows higher. Distorted bedliner side walls are unsightly, and are unappealing to the consumer. In addition, the tight fit of the bedliners near the front wall-side wall juncture, makes close nesting in that region difficult, with the result that successive bedliners in a stack are displaced further and further rearward. Not only does this rearward "kick-back" extend the length, and hence the shipping volume of the stack, it also tends to move the stack center of mass rearward, detracting from the stability of the stack. Stability is a concern not only in storage, but also when the stack is lifted and moved, for example by a forklift truck.
What is needed is a truck bedliner which can nest closely, but which can be readily assembled for side wall protection within a truck bed.